Lake Oroville

Stop 3

Water next enters the Oroville – Thermalito Complex. Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s principal reservoir, has a capacity of 3.5 million acre-feet. This is enough to supply about 40% of California’s urban water needs for 1 year. Oroville Dam is the tallest dam in the U.S. at 770 feet. It was built with 72 million cubic yards of tailings left by gold miners and also provides flood control.

The Thermalito Facilities and Hyatt Pump Power Plant produce an average of 2.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year. Using a 100-watt light bulb for ten houses consumes 1 kilowatt per hour. You would need 2.2 billion light bulbs, each one on for 10 hours, to consume 2.2 million kilowatt hours of energy.